Two years after authorizing a plan to implant identity microchips in pets, Los Angeles city officials have yet to implement the program--even though it could potentially save thousands of animals from being euthanized. The program, mandated by the City Council in January 1998, calls for electronically tagging all dogs and cats adopted out of the city's six shelters.

Two years after authorizing a plan to implant identity microchips in pets, Los Angeles city officials have yet to implement the program--even though it could potentially save thousands of animals from being euthanized. The program, mandated by the City Council in January 1998, calls for electronically tagging all dogs and cats adopted out of the city's six shelters.

The good news is that after more than a year with only one veterinarian to care for the 74,000 animals that come through Los Angeles shelters each year, the Animal Regulation Department hired a second vet last week. The bad news is that he quit the next day. "He was really not here long enough for me to get used to," said Dena Mangiamele, the department's lone vet. "What are you going to do?" Mangiamele said that Grover H.

In response to an early morning dog attack that severely injured an animal regulation employee last November, the City Council agreed Wednesday to study new policies that would give swing and graveyard employees better protection when working in city kennels.

They flutter from telephone poles all over the city: homemade fliers with blurry photos of lost dogs or cats, posted by desperate pet lovers. Now, the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation believes that it may have a technological solution to the problem of wandering pets: computer chips. By implanting a chip the size of a grain of rice under the skin of a pet's neck, the department hopes to reunite lost pets and their owners and cut down on the number of animals that it must kill.

There is good news and bad news for the beleaguered Los Angeles Animal Regulation Department. The good news is that after more than a year with only one veterinarian to care for the 74,000 animals that come through the city shelters each year, the department hired a second vet last week. The bad news is that he quit the next day. "He was really not here long enough for me to get used to," said Dena Mangiamele, the department's lone vet. "What are you going to do?" Mangiamele said that Grover H.

In response to an early morning dog attack that severely injured an animal regulation employee last November, the City Council agreed Wednesday to study new policies that would give swing and graveyard employees better protection when working in city kennels.

Pet identification in the city of Los Angeles went high-tech Wednesday, as the City Council approved a program that would electronically tag pets to better reunite them with their owners. By implanting an electronic device the size of a rice kernel into the scruff of a pet's neck, animal regulation officials are hoping to reduce the number of dogs and cats euthanized because shelters are unable to find their owners.

* Veterinarians in Los Angeles County: 757 * Number of holistic vet: 4 * Animal shelters in Los Angeles County: 19 * Number of animals admitted in 1995: Approximately 100,000 * Shelters run by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: 2 * Number of dogs admitted by SPCA shelters in 1995: 4,337 * Number of cats: 3,391 * Number of SPCA dogs euthanized: 587 * Number of cats: 263 * Number of Los Angeles pet cemeteries: 3

Martha Willman's foster felines article ("Cat's Cradles," Aug. 23) certainly illustrates the need for volunteer foster parents for newborn kittens at animal shelters throughout Los Angeles. However, Willman writes that the Los Angeles City Animal Services program "is the first of its kind in Los Angeles," which is inaccurate. Since its inception in 1877, well before the birth of city animal services, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles (spcaLA) was unofficially fostering newborns, as well as housing abused and battered people and children.

Pet identification in the city of Los Angeles went high-tech Wednesday, as the City Council approved a program that would electronically tag pets to better reunite them with their owners. By implanting an electronic device the size of a rice kernel into the scruff of a pet's neck, animal regulation officials are hoping to reduce the number of dogs and cats euthanized because shelters are unable to find their owners.

They flutter from telephone poles all over the city: homemade fliers with blurry photos of lost dogs or cats, posted by desperate pet lovers. Now, the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation believes that it may have a technological solution to the problem of wandering pets: computer chips. By implanting a chip the size of a grain of rice under the skin of a pet's neck, the department hopes to reunite lost pets and their owners and cut down on the number of animals that it must kill.

The good news is that after more than a year with only one veterinarian to care for the 74,000 animals that come through Los Angeles shelters each year, the Animal Regulation Department hired a second vet last week. The bad news is that he quit the next day. "He was really not here long enough for me to get used to," said Dena Mangiamele, the department's lone vet. "What are you going to do?" Mangiamele said that Grover H.

There is good news and bad news for the beleaguered Los Angeles Animal Regulation Department. The good news is that after more than a year with only one veterinarian to care for the 74,000 animals that come through the city shelters each year, the department hired a second vet last week. The bad news is that he quit the next day. "He was really not here long enough for me to get used to," said Dena Mangiamele, the department's lone vet. "What are you going to do?" Mangiamele said that Grover H.

The bullhorn at maximum volume always heralds their arrival, these mini-terrorists who bully my neighborhood under the wide cloak of the 1st Amendment and the thin pretense of defending animals. Their numbers range from about 10 to 20-something, the members often festively dressed in a hip-gypsy style for a weekend or after-dark outing.

Re "A Painful Debate for Animal Lovers," Aug. 27: People often don't know that the local humane society or SPCA is not the same thing as the city pound. The pound (now often known as Animal Care and Control) is an arm of public health and safety, and is legally obligated to take in every animal. Humane societies, on the other hand, are chartered specifically to protect animals. It is not necessarily their mission to take in every homeless animal. In our home state of Utah at this time of year, Best Friends AnimalSanctuary is gearing up for the annual Utah's Week for the Animals.